Vortron Industrial: Superior Centrifugal Blowers
Vortron Industrial specializes in the design and manufacture of high-performance, high-efficiency centrifugal blowers for air knife systems and other applications. The key to a high-efficiency air knife system is a high-efficiency centrifugal blower. Vortron understands this concept better than anyone. If you compare air knife systems from various manufacturers, you will always find that the system utilizing a Vortron blower is more energy efficient and more durable overall because of the exeptionally high quality of our blowers. You might have the most efficient air knives or nozzles in the world, but your system will not acheive optimum performance unless it is powered by a Vortron blower.

Vortron Delivers Air Superiority

Superior Durability - Vortron's centrifugal blowers incorporate advanced, Patented features which enhance durability and dramatically extend operating life beyond all other competing industrial blowers. Only Vortron Industrial conducts on-going, 'round-the-clock durability testing on their blowers. Vortron backs this durability commitment with a full two-year warranty for each blower that is shipped, the best in the industry.

Superior Efficiency - The efficiency levels acheived by Vortron's centrifugal blowers are unequaled throughout the blower industry worldwide, tested to the highest precision possible and documented by certified compressor maps. A plant air audit will clearly show that installation of a Vortron Air Power centrifugal blower and air knife system will provide a drastic reduction in plant energy costs, compared to a "plant air" blow-off system. In these cases, up to 90% energy reduction can be realized! And in comparison to other industrial blowers, performance can be matched using 25% to 50% less power. All blower manufacturers will make "high-efficiency" claims, but only Vortron Industrial can guarantee its efficiency levels will not be beat by any competitor.

Superior Performance - Vortron's centrifugal blowers have been engineered to deliver performance at operating points that no other compact industrial blower can match, providing pressure and airflow which previously required the use of multi-stage blowers. To a manufacturing plant, more volume and higher velocity from a blower or air knife system means improved blow-off effectiveness, resulting in increased production throughput, and better product quality with lower reject rates. As Vortron blower performance is documented and certified through rigorous testing, Vortron Industrial provides end users with the support of a true performance guarantee. A side-by-side comparison of a Vortron blower with any industrial blower of equivalent motor size will show that Vortron clearly surpasses performance of a comparable product under equal conditions.

High-Efficiency Centrifugal Blower Development - How Does Vortron Do It?
One of the fundamental differences that sets Vortron's centrifugal blowers apart from the rest is exhaustive testing. Vortech Engineering has over 15 years of experience in industry-leading automotive supercharger design, development, and manufacturing. The Vortron Industrial division of Vortech has incorporated the same excellence into the engineering and development of its industrial blowers. Several years of analytical and empirical development are devoted to optimization, with numerous iterations for each blower model tested and evaluated against stiff criteria. All blower testing is accomplished with Vortron's own gas compressor test stand, which has been developed and operated in conformance with SAE Test Standard J-1723 - a first and only in the industry! As such, Vortron is the only industrial blower manufacturer that publishes a certified compressor map, derived from actual test data, for each blower model that it manufactures.

Computational Fluid Dynamics
Vortron Industrial employs highly sophisticated analytical tools in the development of all their industrial blowers, including Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) codes developed specifically for the design of turbomachinery. Using CFD, a designer can analyze the aerodynamic performance of the entire blower/compressor stage in great detail, predicting parameters such as "bulk efficiency" to a very high degree of accuracy for each blower model. Through the use of CFD technology and other blower optimization routines available to us at Vortron, we can reveal and analyze certain performance parameters within the flowpath of each compressor stage that present opportunities to improve performance. Sure, we could try some modifications and test, but we can't simply pull this stuff out of thin air. A pure trial and error method would make full optimization nearly impossible, so from that standpoint, the skills and experience we have with tools such as CFD have been enormously helpful in the process of centrifugal blower development.

Testing is Fundamental to the Centrifugal Blower Development Process
Whether it's a new clean-sheet, or a re-rate of an existing blower model, such as the Z40, the ability to test and quantify blower performance is crucial. Vortron often makes some fairly broad assumptions during the blower design process that can have a strong influence on the expectations of the final blower product and resulting performance targets. If our assumptions during the initial design and computer modeling stages are over-optimistic, we can easily end up with a centrifugal blower that does not meet our design goals. It is much more difficult to find out where and how we went wrong. Fortunately, Vortron Industrial prevails as much upon accurate testing and validation of their centrifugal blower designs as they do on computer modeling. Blower testing is where Vortron's state-of-the-art gas compressor test stand comes into play. Vortron is still the only industrial blower manufacturer that tests and certifies the performance and efficiency of their blower products in accordance with an accepted standard. Vortron uses the Society of Automotive Engineers Standard J-1723 for testing blowers and correcting test data, meaning that any organization with a certified, compliant test stand, using the J-1723 standard will obtain the same results if testing the same blower.

In addition, we have found that our test stand is very useful for obtaining additional data that can verify and validate the modeling assumptions made during the blower design process. This data allows us to establish and validate our initial assumptions and use them with higher confidence in future centrifugal blower designs. With the work Vortron has accomplished so far, we are very confident that we have the ability to develop a centrifugal blower that meets or exceeds our performance goals every single time. When it comes to industrial blower design, Vortron Industrial is right on the money.

Vortron's Test Cell - Vortron uses this equipment to measure the performance and efficiency of its centrifugal blowers.

Example of CFD Output - this is one of the many graphic views available to evaluate aerodynamic performance within the flowpath of a centrifugal blower impeller.

Example of a Certified Compressor Map - This is the Result of a J-1723 Compressor Test. Complete performance parameters of the Z40e Centrifugal Blower are displayed on this map, (operating efficiency, flow range, and pressure rise at various speeds). The data was obtained from a SAE Standard J-1723 test, as with all of Vortron's compressor maps. As shown on the map, the Z40e centrifugal blower easily reaches a flowrate of 1300 SCFM at 100"WC (1.25 pressure ratio) at an efficiency of 80 percent. Because of its high efficiency, it is able to meet the operating point with only a 25 HP motor.